


Swayheart

by ActualHurry



Category: Destiny (Video Games)
Genre: Heist, M/M, Pre-Relationship, Undercover
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-30
Updated: 2019-12-30
Packaged: 2021-02-27 12:15:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,159
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22026946
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ActualHurry/pseuds/ActualHurry
Summary: With Mithrax's help, Shiro learns to accept that sometimes, the enemy of an enemy really is a friend...even if that friend has four arms and a stunning tendency towards the idealistic.
Relationships: Mithrax/Shiro-4 (Destiny)
Comments: 12
Kudos: 120





	Swayheart

**Author's Note:**

> I started this fic in May 2019! I finished it right before 2020. Happy New Year, make it your resolution to smooch a Fallen. Thanks to tanyart for the Eliksni sensitivity read, thanks to Agent_24 for the beta, and thanks to Mithrax for being the perfect man.

Shiro-4 was told many things about Zero Hour – yeah, the mission that he hadn’t been invited to help with, despite his _proficiency_. It all went well, Ikora said. Better than expected, Zavala agreed. The Guardian everyone raved about gave it two thumbs up.

It really was a relief to know that even without Shiro’s involvement, they had a fighting chance. They had every reason to spare a pat on the back for themselves and move onto the next calamity. Except Shiro thought that the resurrected Devils’ proximity to the new hub was more than enough reason to raise Eramis’ priority on the Vanguard’s list…not that anyone asked. 

He said as much, mentioned all the issues that could crop up if they let the new Devils run circles ‘round them, with or without what they came for. He half-expected his concern to be shot down. Force of habit, he figured, especially without Cayde there to follow-up on things. But the still-standing Vanguard swapped a look and nodded at each other.

And that was how Shiro ended up standing around in some beaten-up, broken-down part of the City. It was all ruins here, pieces of forgotten things in the wake of the Red War. Or maybe nobody wanted to look at it, when it was all just one big reminder of failures and loss. 

The miserable view wasn’t why he was visiting, though. He was a point of contact. He’d run gigs like this before, but this was different.

Different, because even though the Vanguard hadn’t told him as much, Shiro already had a feeling he knew who he was waiting on. 

He’d arrived here a little past noon; the sun was setting by the time he heard the crumble of rocks kicked purposefully down from a ledge to his left. Shiro kept his head forward, kept his arms crossed, kept his back against the wall, leaning casually there like he wasn’t fully capable of whipping out his sidearm at the drop of a hat.

Or the drop of a Captain.

For his size, Mithrax landed on the ground with a surprising amount of grace and next to no noise. Shiro was a touch insulted that Mithrax had even felt the need to let him know he was there – as if Shiro wouldn’t have noticed his presence otherwise. Someone must have tipped Mithrax off to Shiro’s preferred method of dealing with Fallen. Smart.

Mithrax was decked out in stark red and shiny golds. Only thing that kept Shiro from shooting on sight was the fact that Mithrax hadn’t shown up holding a weapon. As he straightened up from his agile crouch, he clasped two hands behind his back, two hands in the front. Shiro would almost call it polite.

Almost.

“Shiro-4,” Mithrax rumbled, making the _shh_ and the _rrro_ sound alien. “It is a familiar name among Eliksni.”

Shiro spared a brighter gleam from his mouth at that. “I’ve done my fair share of work around the Fallen. Nice to know it’s recognized.”

Mithrax blinked all his eyes slowly. “Talented at killing, yes. Will you not kill today?” 

Shiro shifted his weight, looked Mithrax over. “Depends. Who am I not killing?”

“Eramis…her crew.” Mithrax shook his head. “All of them. Together, we quiet-step, deep into skiff’s heart. No killing.”

“You want to sneak,” Shiro said flatly. He thought about Eramis’ skiff, the amount of security on the thing. He’d run a scan on it, from a safe distance away – turrets, patrols, mines. She’d decked it out in every possible way to keep anyone she didn’t want in _out_ , and she’d done it well. 

So Shiro shook his head. “No,” he finished. “Can’t happen.” 

“Nama.”

Shiro stared at Mithrax with narrowed eyes. “What info have you got that I don’t?”

Mithrax unclasped his hands to reach into a pouch at his middle, revealing what at first appeared to be scavenged suppressor tech. Shiro slowly moved his own hand off of his sidearm, then took the little device from Mithrax to get a closer look. The base seemed like a Titan’s suppressor grenade, deconstructed and lighter in weight, but when he twisted the sphere and pulled, it extended outwards with a lit-up, purple cord connecting both ends.

“Suppressor…bolas?” Shiro guessed. He took care not to touch the cord. “Not very efficient. Did Eramis make this? Why not keep it a grenade?”

The questions were less for Mithrax to answer and more for Shiro to puzzle out aloud; he was surprised, but not unhappy, when Mithrax did not respond. The Captain waited patiently as Shiro fiddled with the device.

“Not bolas,” Shiro announced finally, gesturing at Mithrax. “You’ve got four arms. Let me borrow two.” 

Mithrax’s mandibles shifted, but he slowly extended his secondary set of arms to Shiro, keeping his hands close together.

It was an unspoken show of trust, and it was one that Shiro begrudgingly appreciated. He hadn’t expected Mithrax to go along with it, but here he was, letting Shiro wrap the suppressor cord around his wrists, keeping it taut enough that he couldn’t simply slip an arm out to be free. Granted, he had more than just the hands Shiro tied together, but from what it looked like, this device wasn’t meant to keep Fallen under control.

“Guardian restraints,” Shiro muttered once he finished looping it around Mithrax’s wrists. He looked between the glimmering suppressor tech and then back up at Mithrax’s face. “I’m listening.” 

Shiro got the impression that Mithrax was smiling when he started talking.

While Eramis had failed to take control of SIVA, she _had_ gotten ahold of some other old, interesting Cryptarch pieces – including some suppressor blueprints that were easy enough to replicate. True to their scavenger nature, her crew had previously picked an unrelated crash site clean, and had apparently had all the materials necessary to start work on it after that.

Her endgame for this? Captives. Get some Guardians, collect ransom from the Vanguard. If they couldn’t use what Guardians had left behind, they could take the Guardians themselves. And then...profit. 

It was one hell of a plan – just crazy enough to work, and tech like this in the four hands of somebody as dangerous as Eramis…? 

Well, suffice to say, Shiro wasn’t all too happy about the idea.

Waiting for Shiro’s answer, Mithrax cocked his head, plainly inquisitive, irritatingly patient, and finally Shiro freed his secondary arms, watching closely as the Captain flexed as if to bring the feeling into them once more. It was a decidedly casual action, no fear in it. 

“Tell me what you mean by quiet step,” Shiro said, to avoid considering how that stung at him.

“Not sneak,” Mithrax said, then held out his hands again, this time requesting. “Not fight. We fool sharp-eyes Eramis.”

Shiro gave him the restraints, but only after a long, careful staring contest. “Something tells me you’ve got a plan in mind already.” 

Mithrax nodded once, then unspooled the restraints again. “Shiro-4. Can we make trust between us?”

“Loaded question.”

Mithrax’s eyes glittered, brighter than even the purple line of the suppressor cord. “Alone Eliksni-killer could kill Eliksni, no trouble. Cleaner, this way. Better, this way.” Mithrax leaned closer, though Shiro noted that he didn’t extend the wire. “Vanguardkel pleased, this way.”

Shiro took a moment, and then he held out his hands.

“All due respect,” Shiro said, polite, “you make one wrong move, and I’ll put a blade through your helmet faster than you can say _lirsoveks._ ”

Mithrax’s shoulders shook with his surprised amusement, and then he began wrapping the restraints around and around Shiro’s wrists.

A handful of klicks away from Eramis’ docked skiff, they polished their plan’s details. 

“You’ll need to look the part,” Shiro told Mithrax. “That gold’s gonna make you one bright target.”

“Vanguardkel say Shiro-4 has kept cloth from his marks,” Mithrax said. “This true?” 

“That’s right. That a problem?”

Mithrax’s answering sound rolled through like a chattering hum. “Wolves bowed, and Marakel kept Wolves. Devils been not bow, Shiro-4 keep Devils cloaks.”

Shiro stared at him. Mithrax shrugged all four arms and finished, “No problem.”

Fine. But Devils colors weren’t going to help them here, not while Eramis was still scrounging together House Dusk. Shiro had his Ghost transmat some Dusk gear to them, and Mithrax seemed pleased by it. Shiro turned his head away while Mithrax, piece-by-piece, swapped out his current gold-and-red for the cool shade that Dusk wore.

Already, this was going to go down as just about the strangest mission Shiro had ever undergone for the Vanguard’s sake. This was one of those where he would’ve gone back to Andal and Cayde, passed on all the intel, and then they would head out to grab ramen and the two of them would laugh over Shiro’s head at all the twisted, funny parts.

Maybe he’d go for the ramen on his own, when all this was done.

Once Mithrax was done, Shiro pushed off of the rock he’d been leaning against, where he had appeared to be the utter picture of patience. “All set?” he asked.

“Eia.” 

It took all of Shiro’s self-control not to walk stiffly with Mithrax taking up the spot behind him. He flexed his fingers to keep the nerves out of them, straightened his back to retain some shred of control. With his hands bound in front of him, the suppressor tech kept his Light dim so that Shiro couldn’t summon Arc even if he wanted to – and he very well could want to, if things went sideways. His sidearm sat on his hip, but the only way to make a grab for it would involve dislocating his shoulder. Shiro kept that in mind, just in case.

“Why the gold?” Shiro said as they walked, still far enough out from Eramis’ skiff that he knew he could speak freely. Fallen wouldn’t be patrolling this far out, not while they’d want all of their many hands on deck to protect their loot. Eramis was cunning, but she wouldn’t stretch her forces too thinly.

“The gold,” Mithrax repeated, as if thinking. “The gold for House Light…and unity, made as one – House Light, and you Guardians.” 

He said Guardians like it was four separate words, and at first Shiro chalked it up to frustration with his enunciation – except, then Mithrax hissed and corrected himself: “But not-Guardians, too. _Humans_.”

Shiro glanced carefully over his shoulder at Mithrax. “That’s a nice sentiment. What makes you think every other Fallen’s gonna give a damn about your sales pitch?”

“Kell mind-open Eliksni, with new-thoughts, no past-wish,” Mithrax said, straightening his posture with what Shiro recognized as pride, enthusiasm. He clasped his secondary hands, adding, “We fight together. Not war. Not enemy. Together.”

Shiro said, “Huh,” and turned forward again. 

Mithrax hummed behind him. “What say the Eliksni hunter? Are you mind-open?” 

“I’m undecided.” 

Somehow, the small sound of understanding that Mithrax gave in reply only needled him worse.

As they neared their destination, Shiro paid closer attention to their surroundings. The thick brush began thinning the closer they got to the EDZ coastline, dense leaf litter giving way to rocky, pebbled dirt. Mithrax kept the shock blades far enough from Shiro’s back that he couldn’t feel the prickle of electricity through his cloak – at least, for a while.

Fake threats weren’t going to fly. It needed to look like Mithrax had really, _truly_ captured Shiro, and so Shiro was expecting it when Mithrax put his shock blade around the front of his neck. He even expected the hum of the second blade at his back.

He was not expecting Mithrax to scruff him with his remaining hands by the back of the cloak, but even Shiro had to admit it was a good touch. Considering his closeness alone lit every alarm bell in his body even though Shiro _knew_ that Mithrax wasn’t going to kill him (probably!), it must’ve looked convincing to outsiders.

Quietly, Mithrax made a chattering sound, not quite laughter, but something close to reassuring. Or an attempt at it, Shiro thought, feeling decidedly not reassured.

Mithrax pushed him forward and Shiro went, taking longer strides now that he had a much taller Fallen urging him along. They eventually broke through the last of the forest and onto a sparse beach, the overcast sky tinting the world gray. Eramis’ skiff sat halfway in the shallow water, halfway moored in the sand, the ocean lapping lazily at the platform leading up to the interior of the ship.

Despite knowing full well that Eramis drastically modded her ship, prior knowledge didn’t prepare Shiro for this. Even from this distance, he could make out a couple distinct changes from the usual brand. It was notably larger than the average, had less weaponry (visible, anyway; he remembered all the worrisome bits from his preliminary scan), and looked to be built more to entertain temporary camps than it was to drop troops off. It was impressive work…and dangerous, too. She couldn’t be allowed to strengthen her numbers this close to the new Tower. It was asking for disaster.

A low frequency buzz reached Shiro’s ears, interrupting his thoughts. He glanced around without turning his head, spotting the telltale refraction of an invisible Marauder. From the sounds of it, there were three – no, four more – slowly closing in around them. 

Shiro kept his head forward. In the distance, closer to the skiff, Vandals crawled up from hiding, poking their heads out, pointing their weapons his way. Mithrax did not change his pace. He walked as if he was exactly where he was meant to be, pushing Shiro along, guiding him by that tight hold on his cloak. It pulled the scarf taut around Shiro’s neck, collaring him, and Shiro fought the urge to strike back for it. 

Every instinct rippled through him as they approached: instincts to survive, to fight, to take down each and every one of the Fallen keeping their eyes on him. There were mines scattered on the coast, mines that Shiro spotted thanks to years and years of familiarity, but before he could bother stepping around them, Mithrax was already shoving him in another direction, redirecting him around one mine and then another. 

Halfway there. One Marauder finally uncloaked with a disturbed shiver, then launched themselves towards Shiro and Mithrax both. 

Mithrax jostled Shiro out of the way of the Marauder’s lunge, Mithrax’s shock blade coming into contact with the barest part of Shiro’s neck. It sent a current of heat and arc through Shiro’s body, his sensors firing, circuits flashing hot. Shiro inhaled, sharp, and without missing a beat, Mithrax corrected his angle, taking the blade from Shiro’s throat. He snapped a string of Eliksni at the Marauder so fast that Shiro didn’t even catch it all – something about prize, something about honor, something about claiming.

Despite the static in his ears, Shiro was pretty certain Mithrax just called him _his_. He didn’t need to fake his bristling.

The Marauder hissed, then stumbled back three steps in a low crouch, eyeing Shiro. The rest of the Marauders showed themselves, and a Vandal tilted their rifle up, lifting the sights off of Shiro. The others followed suit.

“Do not overstep in your enthusiasm,” Mithrax said in Eliksni to the first Marauder, far kinder than Shiro expected most Captains would be at such unbridled action. “Eramis expects me.” 

The Marauder shrank lower still, turning their head away. “Forgive me,” they said in return, though their attention flicked once again towards Shiro. 

Shiro only turned his chin up higher. They all knew who he was. Let them see.

Mithrax tightened his scruff hold on Shiro, then jerked his head towards the skiff. Like nothing had happened, all the Marauders disappeared at once and scattered, likely returning to their original patrol positions. The Vandals in the distance dipped low on the horizon again, behind craggy rocks and cover that the skiff provided them.

Only then did they continue their trek to the ship – Mithrax with his proud, straight-backed strides, and Shiro, stumbling along like an unwilling prisoner. He made a show of testing his restraints while they boarded, and Mithrax shook him by the neck hard enough that Shiro had to take a moment to orient himself again once he stopped. He glared back at Mithrax.

And Mithrax didn’t even spare him a glance.

Equal parts impressed and spiteful at how good Mithrax was at pretending to be like any other Captain, it wasn’t until they were all the way inside the skiff that Shiro realized he’d let Mithrax lead him around the rest of the mines without a second thought. 

Mithrax navigated the skiff like it was his own, taking a turn, another turn, skipping one hall for another. It was larger on the inside than any other skiff that Shiro had been in, and even though he’d known that just from looking at the outside, it hadn’t prepared him for the interior. There were cots lining the walls, likely to clear floor space for strongholds and storage in proper rooms. Shiro memorized their route and then played it back in his head until he was sure he could make it out with his eyes closed. 

Judging by the layout, the back of the ship would likely house the rest of the suppressor tech they were looking for – unless Eramis was keeping it on her person, and then things would get a little trickier.

And then the skiff erupted into alarms, and it completely ruined any tactical backup planning that Shiro had been attempting.

Shiro was wrenched to the side and got a glimpse of a room before he nearly tripped flat on his face without his arms free to steady him, except that Mithrax righted him on the way down. The already dim light of the skiff became impossibly darker as the door slid shut behind them with a click.

Whirling, Shiro had his fists up and ready to defend himself when Mithrax’s face appeared far too close to his. In the black, his eyes were brighter than bright. 

“ _Shhhh_ ,” Mithrax hissed, close enough that Shiro could almost smell the ether, sweet and strong on his breath.

Footsteps outside, barely audible over the wailing alarms. Shiro got the message, stalled his lungs entirely, whatever leftover catalyst that was in his system still burning out. Mithrax, silent as the night and utterly still, watched the door over Shiro’s shoulder. The footsteps passed in the hallway, and then passed again, alarm unceasing.

Shiro’s vision had long since adjusted to the low light. This was hardly more than a small closet, Mithrax’s taller, bulkier form forced into a hunched position to give Shiro the room to stand. He looked – well, he looked _deeply_ uncomfortable, but Shiro wasn’t about to ask him to move around, not when the slightest shift of Mithrax’s weight might draw suspicion.

Mithrax murmured, “Eyes up.”

Shiro glanced upwards. Above them was a vent that looked particularly pop-out-able. And it looked just large enough for a Hunter.

“Shortcut,” Shiro whispered. “Gotta head to the back of the skiff, right?” 

Mithrax nodded, nearly bumping their heads together. Shiro extended his arms. 

“Alright, but if you want it this way,” he breathed, “I need my hands.” 

Without so much as a protest at this change in plans, Mithrax took Shiro’s hands in his secondary, then unspooled the restraints from around his wrists with his primary. The purple cord faded, then went out entirely once it was no longer touching Shiro.

Shiro didn’t realize how cold his hands had become until they were free. He allowed himself a moment to enjoy the static-pop on his fingertips, then reached out for Mithrax’s shock blades and closed his grip around the blades. The blue-white crackle disappeared in an instant, gone from the shock blades and leeched right into Shiro’s Light.

Mithrax blinked twice in quick succession. Shiro shook the excess Arc out from his hands and grinned with his mouth light shining, because sometimes, it really was the little things.

 _“Whoops,”_ Shiro said softly, entirely unapologetic, and later he’d wonder if Mithrax’s snort was stifled laughter.

Mithrax holstered both the blades on either side of his waist, then slowly, carefully, without pressing too far into Shiro’s space, rearranged his arms in a valiant attempt at imitating a ladder. If Shiro hadn’t already been questioning his life choices—

 _Aw, but what a story to tell_ , he heard in Cayde’s teasing voice, and he started to climb.

Getting to the vent wasn’t the trouble. Mithrax was strong, and his arms didn’t so much as tremble while supporting Shiro’s full weight. Opening the vent quietly was a whole other endeavor, and after several vain attempts Shiro finally thought, _screw it_ , and waited for the alarm to wail enough that he ripped the vent’s grate off entirely without the screech of metal giving them away.

He passed the grate down to Mithrax (he never thought he’d be so glad that Captains have four arms; talk about multitasking) and then pulled himself up into the vent. The alarm wasn’t so loud here, and Shiro squeezed his shoulders through the more narrow routes while deeply wishing that he had worn more slimming armor. 

Even a large skiff was still a skiff though, and it was only a short, shimmying trek before Shiro peeked through a grate and spied what appeared to be a storage room. 

_Bingo,_ he thought, then popped the grate out, hooking his fingertips through the holes to keep it from falling first.

Dropping down into the room, Shiro readied Trespasser before he was even halfway up on his feet again, but there was no one to be seen, neither Dreg nor Baron. The alarm still wailed, and Shiro had half a thought to unlock this room and get to Mithrax so he had more than one pair of eyes – or many, many extra pairs – trying to seek out what they’d come for, but he was already here. This part, he could do on his own.

Shiro holstered his sidearm once more and rushed from crate to crate, darting between loot chest and Glimmer hoard and armory until he found a container with a decently complicated lock. Electronic, high-tech. The works. Eramis knew her stuff.

“Never try to keep a Hunter out of anything,” Shiro muttered, then jammed one of Mithrax’s pilfered shock blades, alight and dancing with Arc energy, into the lock. 

Nobody would be able to prove the lock _exploded_. If anything, it just shorted out and caught on fire, a little bit, and Shiro was able to put it out without any trouble. The important part was that all the suppressor tech, blueprints, supplies, and finished products, were all sitting pretty in that mostly-unharmed box.

Shiro tossed a transmat beacon in, shut the container, and watched it disappear. Then, taking another transmat beacon out, he crushed it under his boot and left it in plain sight. That was half of the mission done. The other half required getting out mostly intact, both him _and_ Mithrax, and with that alarm still blaring wildly, Shiro had a feeling that getting in was the easiest bit.

Trespasser drawn, Shiro blew out the door controls to get out of the room, and, as if as an afterthought, lobbed a few Flux grenades at what remained in there, too. He sprinted down the hallway as the exciting racket of snappy explosions went off behind him. When he rounded the corner towards the supply closet that Mithrax had pulled them into, he almost worried that he’d find him surrounded by Eramis’ crew.

But as he opened the door to the closet, Shiro figured he should’ve been more worried not to find Mithrax at all.

Shiro didn’t know how he could expect anything other than an empty room. Of course Mithrax was gone. Of course he’d taken the first out. Things got sticky, so the Captain ditched. Maybe he’d even gotten the word to Eramis somehow that there were intruders, and he’d been trying to lead Shiro right to her. It would explain why he knew the damn skiff so well, and how _good_ he’d been.

The alarm nearly masked the sound of a wire rifle charging up, but Shiro ducked just in time to avoid the Vandal’s shot and took off running. New plan, minus Mithrax: get to the exit, grab his sparrow, and get out. He slid down the platform out of the ship, dodging a barrage of shots coming his way. All these Fallen must be really, really unhappy to see him still in one piece, and as much as Shiro would’ve liked to stick around and find out just how unhappy they really were, he had better places to be.

He was hardly more than five steps out of the skiff when he heard the string of furious, yowled Eliksni behind him:

“ _Intruder, wrong-doer, Shiro-4! Bane of our House Devils! Kill him!_ ”

Shiro spun on his heel. From the platform leading up into the skiff, Eramis the Shipstealer met his steady gaze with a wrathful one of her own, her mandibles wide open in snarling outrage.

Shiro could go for her. He could end this threat here and now. One good leap, one slash of an Arc blade, hot and sharp and hungry, and all that ether would spill out of her like smoke, useless. Her shock rifle was raised, showing a wide, easy opening in the soft part beneath her primary arms. Shiro could make that lunge in less than a second. 

Electricity coursed down the synthetic muscle of his arm, snapped hot into his hand like the sting of venom, or a demanding storm on the horizon. He flexed his fingers, imagining the hilt of a blade, the pointed end of a knife like lightning.

One good, well-timed stab, and —

“Shiro!” shouted Mithrax, somehow louder than both the skiff’s incessant alarm and the roar of the stolen Pike he rode. 

Shiro glanced to look at him as the crackle of Eramis’ rifle split the air; he dove for Mithrax, and the shot caught him in the side, completely bursting through his shields. Mithrax dragged him the rest of the way, or most of the way, onto the back of the Pike before speeding off, and Shiro narrowly avoided being thrown by getting his arms around Mithrax’s middle.

Frantic ringing sounded out from the skiff, and Shiro looked back to see turrets activating all over the body of Eramis’ ship, immediately tracking their movement. Gunfire erupted behind him, hot on their tail, and Shiro hissed in a breath as one of the turrets came too close for comfort, breezing past his shoulder and clipping some of the fur from Mithrax’s mantle.

Something gripped his wrists around Mithrax’s front, and after one dull, stupid second, Shiro realized Mithrax was holding onto him. He had just enough time to think on it before Mithrax swerved to dodge another shock rifle shot.

“Go, go, go!” Shiro yelled, face tucked against the ring of fur lining Mithrax’s neck.

Another pop of the shock rifle to their left, another string of turret fire to their right, coastline flashing beneath them, and then they were flying through the brush, Mithrax tucked close to the Pike to avoid taking any branches to the face. The raucous hum of the Pike echoed back at them, the sound bouncing back against trees, and Shiro almost mistook the rapid _thud-thud-thud_ of his heart for the pounding of the engine.

As they broke through the forest and into a more open area, Mithrax occupying himself by doing slow laps on the abandoned roadway, Shiro gripped the Pike with his knees and turned around, casting his gaze this way and that. He settled back into his seat eventually, satisfied.

“No one’s following us,” Shiro said loudly over the hum of the Pike. “They’re probably checking everything. Likely, they found our busted transmat beacon I left behind, so they know not to give chase.”

“Clever,” Mithrax said, and the upward pull to the word made it sound like he meant it.

Mithrax pulled up to a blown-out building, parking the Pike and shutting it down. Shiro hopped off first, straightening out his cloak. Mithrax gave the Pike a fond pat with three of his hands, then stepped off of it and put what felt like his full attention on Shiro. Prickling at it, Shiro took a breath and put his hands on his waist, shrugging.

“You know, I thought you’d turned traitor,” Shiro admitted first. “When I couldn’t find you back there. You went to get us a way out, though.” 

“Traitor?” Mithrax leaned back slightly as if surprised. “ _Nama_. Remember? We fight together. As one.”

Shiro exhaled, a little lighter this time. “Yeah, yeah. I know you said that. But people say a lot of things.” 

“Eliksni say many-thing too. But we do many-thing as we say.” Mithrax paused, eyeing Shiro with grateful consideration. “No killing, Mithrax did say, a many-thing. And Shiro-4 did listen-close.”

Then, before Shiro even had the opportunity to reply, Mithrax stooped to a deep kneel, ducking his head. It put his height at Shiro’s chest.

“Thank you,” Mithrax finished, transparent sincerity weighing down his words.

Thrown, Shiro reached out with uncertainty to pat Mithrax’s shoulder once. “Yeah, well.” He switched to Eliksni tongue and said, a touch wry, “Thanks for the good time.” 

Mithrax’s mandibles clicked and something near a purr slipped out from his chest, a warm, low rumble as he unfolded himself from his crouch. Shiro hadn’t even known Fallen could make a noise like that. And now that he knew, an ominous curiosity had him wondering if he could make it happen again.

“You learned the language of those which you hunt,” Mithrax said, replying in kind. His eyes gleamed, matching Shiro’s curiosity. “Have I earned the right to ask why?”

Shiro brushed some soil off his shoulder. Mithrax spoke to him so politely in Eliksni, not quite so poetic as he did otherwise – but polite. Afraid to overstep, erring on the side of caution?

Whatever the reason, it was oddly charming, and Shiro found himself choosing his words with a little extra familiarity to them. “It pays to know your enemy,” he said. “Don’t you agree?” 

Mithrax purred again. Maybe this could become a problem.

“Is that what we are?” Mithrax asked, amusement in tilt of his head. “Still enemies?”

Shiro reached down to thumb along the well-known lines of Trespasser, and then, just as easily, he dropped his hand from the gun entirely. “You and me?” Shiro thought on it for a moment longer, and when he spoke again, he dropped the Eliksni. “…Let me know if you need another partner sometime, Misraaks. I’ll be in touch.” 

The glint of Mithrax’s teeth was pleased, and when he disappeared in a clear crackle of stealth tech, Shiro gave him a wave goodbye.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading <3


End file.
